Raikkonen: We have to keep working the same way

Kimi Raikkonen is taking a few days off to recharge his batteries, but his mind is already set on the 2016 season and the challenge ahead.

This was not your first Christmas as a Ferrari driver, but this year did you feel there was something different, maybe in the atmosphere, a sense of optimism?

“The year has finished and obviously for the next year people always expect more than the team did well this year, but it’s always different. There were some new people and the atmosphere overall has been very good in the team this year compared to the previous year and obviously that’s normal for us. For the Christmas everybody seems to be more happy. Obviously a long season is finished and soon everybody gets some time off, there is a relaxed feeling”.

Just talking about next year, the President and Maurizio said that everyone in the team must work hard up to improve his game. What do you think you’ll be doing next year?

“Obviously we all know where we want to be as Ferrari, Ferrari wants to win and it will not be easy, I mean, there are a lot of strong teams and all of them have the same idea of winning races and championships. Obviously, having done better this year, we have more expectations for the next one, but we are here for winning races, to win championships, so we will give our 100% to try to bring back the championship for Ferrari, but it’s too early to say. We can do our best but we can’t control what the others do, so we have to keep working the same way, always improving, then we will see where we end up in the next year. There’s not point to start guessing, we have to wait until the winter tests and the first race”.

Meanwhile we have some Christmas break ahead of us. What do you think you’ll be doing over Christmas? Just relaxing at home?

“I’ll just have some time with my family. Unfortunately we don’t have such a long break, we restart in January already, so I’ll have some time off to relax and get ready for next year”.